Another year, another Telstra privacy slip

Customer list pops up on cloud spreadsheet service

Telstra, which hasn’t yet gotten over the privacy breach that required 60,000 password resets in December, has suffered another embarrassment involving customer data.

This time, according to Musicfeeds.com.au, the breach involves customer data being posted to a cloud-based spreadsheet service. The site says the data was apparently put on the Editgrid.com site by a consultant in training (apparently and stupidly using live data).

Telstra has said the data was deleted within an hour of the telco becoming aware of the breach, and access to Editgrid.com has been disabled for all staff.

The Sydney Morning Herald today says customers are complaining that they have yet to hear from the Telco, which is already being investigated by the Federal Privacy Commissioner over the earlier breach.

The new data breach includes customers’ contact details and dates of birth, but according to Telstra, no credit information or passwords.

Editgrid appears to be a feast of private information. While the Telstra spreadsheet has been removed, Google has crawled a large number of spreadsheets containing full names, telephone numbers, physical addresses, e-mail details and business information for a host of individuals who probably aren’t aware that their information is published on the site.